To the Editor:

The quick who, what, where, when, and why: On Saturday, November 9, area musicians and friends of Brooks Morton will be “Celebrating Brooksie!” with an evening of musical performances and raffles at Telstar Auditorium in an effort to raise money to be donated to Brooks to help support his recovery from serious health issues he’s experienced during the last three months. The doors will open at 5:00 p.m. with the musical performances starting at 6:00. There will be a $10.00 suggested donation for admission, and opportunity to give more if you wish, however PLEASE come even if you are unable to contribute monetarily as the general support of your “presence” will be appreciated! Also, children are very welcome!  More information will be publicized prior to the event, but in the meanwhile we hope you’ll want to save the date!

And for those who care to know more details on what’s happened with Brooks, here you go: Three months ago (July 18), Brooks Morton, Newry resident and Greater Bethel Area community member, invaluable volunteer, all around activist, Executive Director and visionary of Western Hills Access Television, Dad, Brother, Uncle, and overall kind and caring soul, was discovered collapsed at his home in Newry. He was taken to Rumford Hospital and after a few hours was transferred to Central Maine Medical Center where he was placed in intensive care, spent a number of days on life support, and began dialysis treatments. After various confusing prognoses and misdiagnoses in those first days (such as possible massive heart attack and possible stroke), consistent findings continually indicated severe infection, yet were also inconclusive as to the cause. After nearly two weeks at CMMC Brooks was transferred to Maine Medical Center and admitted into intensive care.  A few days later, he was put under Maine Med’s general care and eventually transferred to New England Rehab. During his two and a half week stay at New England Rehab, he was sent back to Maine Med twice to treat complications associated with allergic reactions to adhesives. Brooks was finally released to go home on August 26, 40 days after his initial collapse and hospitalization. HOWEVER, since he was still in need of dialysis, he then had to travel to Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington 3 times a week to continue his treatments. After nearly three weeks of trips to Farmington, Brooks was given the great news that his kidneys were healthy enough to stop treatments! YAY…almost, that is. He was instructed to return to CMMC to have his dialysis port removed and during that procedure, an infection was detected. It was then determined that Brooks would have to undergo antibiotic treatments every day at Bridgton Hospital for the next 2 to 6 weeks, estimating it could take that long for the infection to be eliminated. Thankfully, it ended up taking only about 2 and a half weeks. Then, on October 3, the last day of his antibiotic treatments, Brooks experienced a seizure which put him back in CMMC for another 3 days before happily returning back home. That’s a quick overview of a very complicated situation…and yet..unfortunately there is still no conclusive determination as to the underlying “cause” of his entire ordeal. So, although it has been a very challenging period of time for our beloved friend Brooksie and his family members, he thankfully continues to recover, and is, as he says, “Getting better and better every day!”.

For more information on this event, please call 824-2517 or email jewelyodel@yahoo.com or Tanya Johanson,  207-522-5578 or tanyajoh@roadrunner.com

Jewel Clark

“Friends of Brooksie”

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